Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Day One - China

2:30 p.m. (approx 24 hours after waking up to get to the airport) Sunday October 19, 2008
Arrived in Shanghai, China and there was a HUGE line at customs. When I finally got through and found my luggage I walked out. It was then I was wishing Joni was a blond...she was a little harder to spot but I found her! I was so excited to see her but it was already 3:10 and the bus for Hangzhou left at 3:30 (the next one not leaving for another 2 hours) so we had to hurry. Burger King would have to wait until the return trip in 12 days. We lugged my bags to some random elevator that wasn't even working properly and shoved ourselves in with too many people and a motion sick girl. We rushed out and over to buy our tickets with 5 minutes to spare. Enough time to use the toilet (they even had a western style toilet at the bus station!)

We stored my bags under the bus and were on our way. The bus trip NORMALLY takes 3 hours. When a traffic jam stalls you for an extra hour however...yeah...
SO - needless to say, it was about 4 hours till we got to Hangzhou. Just in time to take the hour long bus BACK to Xiasha...where Joni's school and apartment was. We both looked a little rough at the end of this trip. We got to Joni's apartment about 8:30 and decided to "dine in" on some soup a friend had given her. We unpacked my bags and I'm happy to say she was pleased with all the goodies! We chilled out and then went to bed about 11:00 because we had class the next day...in fact, a whole day full of classes. The first one starting at 8...a.m.


More of China to come...